Stupid Questions from a stupid Holy Priest

So, after an enjoyable and rather long break from Azeroth (it's over a year now...) I'm venturing again into Dungeons with Dragons...

okay, enough smalltalk, jumping in:

1) Mastery (Holy): I got the memo that the HoT-Portion of a glyphed PoH is overwritten by a following PoH and his Glyph-HoT. So, in reminiscence to the first mechanic of divine aegis I'm wondering if this is also the fact with echoes of light. If this WOULD be the fact, Mastery would be a rather weak stat in intense fights where heals are rapidly cast one after another.

2) Manamanagement: I'm rather astonished when I look at my CDs. I remember them as truly powerful manatools, but nowadays it seems to me, a b-rezzed healer is just a heap of flesh because his tools won't give him the mana he needs. Otherwise: they're in most of the cases on cooldown because I needed them even during speckless bosskills.

Right now I'm facing tough fights (manawise) on even "easier" bossencounters. But even Magmaw, the Robocouncil and Maloriak confront me with regular AoE-Damage that is sucking me dry when i try to counter them (Sanctuarymode). Usually I lay down a sanctuary, spend every group one PoH, use CoH as a filler and then switch to gheal (because a "heal" does *** ). PoM is "on the fly" as far as it's CD let me use it. Lightwell is well placed, re-cast when weared off and heavily used.
Using this tactic I'm sincerely dry when Maloriak enters his last Phase and I'm just able to spotheal and pray that the lightwell will do the rest (and my accompanying Holydin will manage... somehow).
All in all we're both pushing between 11k and 12k HPS on this fight, iLvl 346, and it's a very unsatisfying experience to see your mates die when the boss has just a few percent left.

So, what can I do to improve my gameplay, my manamanagement in particular? I specced into veiled shadows, use my fiend early (use crawl once), use the second one with hymn, place my lightwell in advance of the pull so I start with full mana... our overheal is in the one digit-area, most of our fights end with 8% or 9% Overheal. And we can't figure out how to be better at that.

So, which nifty tricks do you utilise in order to cope with the contamporary "Art of healing"?

you shouldn't be casting PoH right after another. especially if you're going oom. I belive the glyph and echoes only lasts 6 seconds so if you really needed the aoe heals you might want to time it out for maximum efficiency. greater heal will run you dry however you can actually regain mana by spamming heal.

sanctuary is bad, the heal lasts too long and it's inefficient. you need something like 6+ people to stand in it for the full duration otherwise it's a better idea to use PoH.

veiled shadows is (in my opinion) a waste of 2 talent points. in an 8 minute fight most priests will pop shadowfiend early (let's say around the 1 min mark) with veiled shadows you'll be able to use your shadowfiend again at the 5 minute mark where without it you'll be using it again around the 6 minute mark. in an 8 minute fight regardless of taking veiled shadows or not you're only using your shadowfiend twice. you'd need the fight to be 10 minutes or longer to get the third one (your shadowfiend will be up at the 9 minute mark for veiled shadows.) but from what I can tell most encounters are over by that point.

and yes heal is our bread and butter, it may not heal for much but it's efficient as hell.

sanctuary is bad, the heal lasts too long and it's inefficient. you need something like 6+ people to stand in it for the full duration otherwise it's a better idea to use PoH.

Sanctuary is not bad, it's situational. There are numerous fights where the raid will group up and take large amounts of damage where it is absolutely worthwhile to cast for additional HPS contribution, such as Maloriak's red phase, Chimaeron's feud, etc. The thing to remember is that this spell is one you want to lay down right before the damage, not after it's hit. Basically it's a proactive cast, not reactive.

Also, listing that the heal lasts too long as one of your supporting reasons why you feel sanctuary is a bad spell is just... well, it boggles the mind that people would complain about HoT's having longer duration.

In my opinion - do NOTlisten to those people telling you Heal is your bread and butter. It is NOT. In fights where the whole raid are taking dmg - heal is slow and unreliable. Heal is usually the last spell I use in such fights. Use it when you know it won't result in a wipe. It is indeed very economical mana-wise, but you will barely use it in progression fights. I guess Heal is situational aswell...As all other spells it seems.

What you need to do is familiarise yourself with the fight. You have to know when to ditch slow steady heals and then a massive aoe one. Heal is indeed a great spell, but only when the fight is going smooth or the phase is easy. As an example. In the begining of the Maloriak encounter. I use Heal and an ocassional PoM. By the time we get 2 phases going I am still over 95% mana.(Thats with 3 healers). The moment he starts the red phase. I wait a few seconds, maybe focus on the offtank, who is currently handling the adds and the prepare a Sanctuary for the AoE the boss does. I drop the Sanctuary, I pop a PoM and deal with the rest of it using PoH. Prayer of healing is a really good spell. It is probably my most used spell in each encounter.

Yes. I have tuned my strategies for normals, not heroics. I still haven't been to a heroic run, so I cannot say anything about that.

If the fight is aoe heavy, use Shadowfiend early on, so you can get it atleast 2 times in the fight. On some fights you can get it 3 times, if it's on a 4 minute cooldown. Renew is not good at the moment. If you find yourself abundant with mana, pop 2 on the tanks and keep it up with the Holy Word: Serenity. It's a very low heal, but still - depends on the encounter.

Concentration pots. Those pots are magnicifent. Even more so if you have an alchemist stone. Synchronise your drinking time with the other healers. Pick a phase where you're comfortable doing it. But be sure to check the mana of the other healers. Don't go drinking right before a massive AoE phase. Yes, there might be a time when you are forced to drink since you won't have any mana to deal with it. If you have another priest healer with you. Do both your hymns of hope. Not at the same time of course. Remember that it gives you extra mana for very few seconds after which the mana you gained goes poof. So use it wisely and quickly.

I am far from being a perfect healer. I also make mistakes. But if you know the fight well and you are familiar with your class abilities - you should be fine. Keep stacking spirit and mastery. Armory is a bit bugged and I can't tell you any stats I have, but I'm at 351 ilvl and usually if I run out of mana the last 1 minute of the fight, it's usually due to people 1)standing in sh*t 2)aggroing sh*t 3)not caring bout survival in general.

Remember. Healing is in Cataclysm is harder, because all people need to perform at their best. If they don't, it is almost impossible for you to cope with their mistakes and heal through it.

PoH glyph is overwritten, but don't worry about it. Generally speaking you will PoH one grp and then the other grp and then the first grp cutting some of your glyph poh off.
Echo of Light stacks, but the initial effect still fades as it's suppose to. Back in the first days of 4.0 it wouldn't fade and you could get billion heal with holy nova spam. Try spamming heal on yourself in sw/og while checking the combat log, you will see it stack and then cap and then get weaker if you cast slower.

1. No, echos of light will tick out its full 6 seconds for every direct healing spell you cast (so it looks like it stacks), try it out. Cast heal on yourself, and watch the tick amount, then cast it again on yourself and watch the tick amount go up. In a Raid setting I tend not to POH the same group twice though just because of the glyph. Take Heroic Halfus for instance, I will PoH 5 different groups, one after another and between that and the other raid healer everyone is pretty much topped of for the next AE raid dmg.

Without looking at logs or seeing how you play I really couldn't tell you what you need to do better. the thing with healing is, that it depends on so many Variables such as

The tanks skill and gear, ability to know when to pop CDs

The raids DPS, faster kills = less mana needed

The raid as a whole ability to avoid avoidable dmg

You fellow healers oh efficient and skilled they are

You're ability as a healer, how you gear, how you play, the ability to not over-heal much (if having mana issues)

When ever we are doing progressing fights I look at all these things, I look WOL and look to see how many people are taking avoidable dmg, I look at myself and look at what I am over healing with and how I could improve that. I compare my stats to other priest who are healing the same encounters and see what they are doing.

Sanctuary is not bad, it's situational. There are numerous fights where the raid will group up and take large amounts of damage where it is absolutely worthwhile to cast for additional HPS contribution, such as Maloriak's red phase, Chimaeron's feud, etc. The thing to remember is that this spell is one you want to lay down right before the damage, not after it's hit. Basically it's a proactive cast, not reactive.

Also, listing that the heal lasts too long as one of your supporting reasons why you feel sanctuary is a bad spell is just... well, it boggles the mind that people would complain about HoT's having longer duration.

I should have elaborated, but it was late and I was sleepy.

heroics it's bad, but yes there are situational times where I will put down a sanctuary. the reason I commented on the length of the spell was because there are often times where you can't wait the full duration due to moving out of or away from mechanics.

I guess I could sum up my post by just saying there is no set in stone answer of what spells or rotation you should be using, priests have a lot of different heals tailored to different situations.

1. No, echos of light will tick out its full 6 seconds for every direct healing spell you cast (so it looks like it stacks), try it out. Cast heal on yourself, and watch the tick amount, then cast it again on yourself and watch the tick amount go up. In a Raid setting I tend not to POH the same group twice though just because of the glyph. Take Heroic Halfus for instance, I will PoH 5 different groups, one after another and between that and the other raid healer everyone is pretty much topped of for the next AE raid dmg.

Without looking at logs or seeing how you play I really couldn't tell you what you need to do better. the thing with healing is, that it depends on so many Variables such as

The tanks skill and gear, ability to know when to pop CDs

The raids DPS, faster kills = less mana needed

The raid as a whole ability to avoid avoidable dmg

You fellow healers oh efficient and skilled they are

You're ability as a healer, how you gear, how you play, the ability to not over-heal much (if having mana issues)

When ever we are doing progressing fights I look at all these things, I look WOL and look to see how many people are taking avoidable dmg, I look at myself and look at what I am over healing with and how I could improve that. I compare my stats to other priest who are healing the same encounters and see what they are doing.

Agreed. Also, HW:Sanc is fairly limited in terms of scope (i.e. the number of bosses that it would be useful in), and I personally feel it would be too limited in Maloriak and Omnitron.